


On A Snowy Christmas Night

by strixus



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Christmas, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strixus/pseuds/strixus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Where are You Christmas. An unexpected guest is perhaps not so unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On A Snowy Christmas Night

**Author's Note:**

> Song by Elvis Presley

Midnight prayers so softly whispered in   
A Cathedral's candle light  
Bring the message of the holidays  
On a snowy Christmas night

"I still can't believe he's actually going to be here this year." Quatre said for what had to be the hundredth time that day. Trowa looked up idly from the apples he was peeling at Quatre and shrugged at him, then went back to his apples.

"Oh don't give me that again ,Trowa! It's been three years since anyone has heard from him, much less seen him. Even Duo says-"

"Even I say what?" Duo said, leaning in through the kitchen door, looking in on Trowa and Quatre where they sat at the Formica kitchen table, Trowa behind his pile of apples and pot, and Quatre checking off ingredient listings with the house computer.

"That Heero seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth for the last three years only to have suddenly sent us a post card from oblivion saying he will be here today sometime!" Quatre said, sounding exasperated. "It's just bizarre, almost too bizarre, to believe, that's all I'm saying."

Duo walked over and pulled out an empty chair at the table and sat down next to Quatre. He paused for a moment, and then picked up some of the papers on the table and looked over them for a second before looking up at Quatre.

"This really has you bothered, doesn't it, Quatre?" He said with concern.

"Damn right it does! How could you tell?"

"You just told the house computer you need two whole roasted triceratopses for the ham glaze." Duo said with a smirk, pointing to the readout imbedded in the table surface.

Quatre swore a long string of explicative that would have made a sailor blush. "I told you I needed this interface in English, Trowa! But oh no, Japanese was all you'd have installed!" Quatre got up, and stalked off to the pantry with the recipe printouts clenched in his hand, still raving about the house computer not being as good as a butler.

Duo looked over at Trowa, who had paused mid apple and was looking after Quatre, with an expression of concern on his face. Trowa looked over at his fellow pilot and sighed.

"Don't worry about him, Duo." Trowa said, going back to pealing his apples for the apple sauce. "He's just worried about Heero being here after all this time away."

 

"Yeah, I think even Wufei is a little nervous about it." Duo agreed.

"Not for the same reasons, though." A loud thump and a yelp of pain from the pantry made Trowa get up from the table. Duo stood and looked towards the pantry questioningly. A long string of Quatre's increasingly colorful expletives, drifting in and out of Arabic, followed another loud thump.

"Jesus on a stick, I never knew Quatre could curse like that." Duo remarked.

"He can," Trowa said, "When he doesn't know what to cook for someone."

 

Holly wreaths and hidden mistletoe  
Symbols of the seasons might  
Joyful faces everywhere you go  
On a snowy Christmas night

 

After helping extract Quatre from two large salt cured hams which had attacked him, Duo wandered into the living room of the two story farm house. One corner was completely filled with an eight foot fraiser fur tree, decorated to the hilt with ornaments, lights, and tinsel, and at its foot was a mass of presents whose wrappings ranged from brilliant emerald green foil to pure white. Along one edge was a cluster of gloss black boxes with white ribbons, each a different size and slightly different shape: Trowa and Quatre's attempt at humor with his presents.

Duo sighed, and threw himself down on the long, dark blue couch on the far wall, and glanced up at the wall screen, turned to some inane holiday movie. Duo winced, and hoped that something else was on other than this. Desperately, he looked around for the remote control, and, finally finding it among the cushions, started to change the channel.

"Change it, and you die, Maxwell." Came Chang Wufei's deep voice. He was sitting in the reclining chair opposite the couch, feet propped up, and a laptop propped on his outstretched legs. He looked up from the screen long enough to glare at Duo mockingly, and then went back to typing madly.

"Oh come on, Wu-man. Don't tell me you're doing work on Christmas Eve! And even worse while watching 'Its a Wonderful Life'!" Duo got up, and walked over to Wufei's chair. "Come on! The Russian oil markets are closed today, even I know that!"

"For you're information, Duo, I am Not doing work. I am, in all actuality," Wufei turned the computer so Duo could see the screen, "Playing a game of solitaire."

"What a relief!" Duo said, collapsing back on the couch. "Still, can I change the channel. I hate this movie."

"No." Wufei glared at him darkly.

"Aww, why not Wu-man?" Duo rolled his eyes.

"Because I've never seen it before." He said simply.

"You've never seen 'It's a Wonderful Life'?" Duo said in shock. "This movie is over a hundred years old, and they still show it every damned Christmas a hundred times. How can you never have seen it?!" Duo had to actually remember to close his mouth which was hanging open in shock. "Jesus, I remember Father Maxwell making us watch this thing at least twice every Christmas while I was at the orphanage. This movie is on at every hour of the damned day and night until December 26th! I ask again, how could you have never seen this movie?"

"I could never make it past the title before now." Wufei said with a laugh.

Duo laughed. "Yeah, I agree with you on that one, Wu-man." Duo grinned, and settled in to watch the rest of the movie with Wufei.

Give thanks for all you've been blessed with  
And hold your loved ones tight  
For you know the Lord's been good to you  
On a snowy Christmas night

At last, the movie ended, and Wufei reluctantly let Duo change the channel to news. The world moved on, even though it was Christmas, and to Duo, it was a reminder that there was a world beyond this close family he had found his way back to. Relena held the annual memorial services, her face on the screen bright and smiling. Duo clenched his jaw, watching her and remembering that she was the reason for the battle in the first place. How easily the rest of the world had forgotten.

Above the muffled curses and occasional thumps from the kitchen, music played on an old style radio that Quatre kept in the kitchen. The usual collection of Christmas songs, as old as the holiday its self it seemed sometimes, filled the air. Duo turned off the news and found a sports report, glad to be bored by the random noise. Wufei was back nose deep in his laptop, this time playing a space fighter game based on Gundam controls. Duo found the idea disturbing, but enjoyed listening to Wufei curse about unresponsiveness and bad adaptation to the PC.

Over all of this noise, the sudden pestering beep of the video phone was like a banshee wail. Quatre cursed again, and yelled at Trowa to answer it. Trowa, aware of his lover's anger over being interrupted from an already stressful cooking session, complied, and slipped into the hallway just within Duo's sight. He pushed the answer button, and the screen bleeped, flashing a short spray of text across the screen. The expression on his face suddenly fell from contented stress to sadness.

"Who was it, Trowa?" Quatre called from the kitchen.

"A text message – from Heero. He's –" Trowa stopped mid sentence. "He's not coming."

Duo was not surprised.

Mother Nature wears a bridal gown  
For the world is dressed in white  
There's a silent glow that fills the earth  
On a snowy Christmas night  
For you know the Lord's been good to you  
On a snowy Christmas night


End file.
